Only supports latin1 characters?

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>>> import re
>>> regex = r'ě'
>>> test_string = 'ě'
>>> flags = 0
>>> re.compile(regex, flags).match(test_string)
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x7f62f1150370>

Using the same character (ě), or any string that contains such not latin1 characters, e.g. 'ي', on http://www.pyregex.com/ won't return any results.